Category Archives: Junk Thought

The output may be diverted into different pools lately, (you didn’t hear me say “Mulligan novel”,) but every day I still find myself staring at blank white space where 500-or-so words should be. Some days the fiction just flows, and some days it takes a little coaxing.

Sometimes, however, the flow happens suddenly at 1:32am, when I’m already half-asleep, and I have to convince myself to get out of bed to scratch out some notes.

The bed is so warm, and the room is so hushed, and surely I wouldn’t forget such a great idea?

Except, of course, that daylight always rinses my brain entirely clean, and by dawn I’ve generally not only forgotten the idea, but that I ever even had one.

So, two nights ago I dragged myself out of bed. I remembered that much because today, while locked in a staring contest with Google Docs, I recalled that I’d had some supposedly brilliant idea.

But what was it?

I genuinely can’t recall.

Yet, I won the battle that night, so I know that, within the notebook I can see on the table just in front of me, there are some jottings that may break this case wide open.

Or will the idea be dream-brained nonsense?

Let’s find out.

* * *

First Impression: It’s a lot more text than I remember scribbling.

Second Impression: This is a pretty workable idea for an upcoming Urban Legend episode. Oddly enough, it’s very much inspired by straddling that borderland between being awake and asleep.

I guess we’ll be hearing from The Tiny Radio as soon as The Outsiders have finished getting into trouble.

(- and, frankly, I think I’ll also be a little more motivated to de-cozy myself the next time a late night idea strikes.)

The last night I spent with Null was much the same as the first.

She came to us a tiny white ball of fluff – she was so small, in fact, that she made our little apartment feel like an echoing cavern; our first apartment, our first shared pet.

I had my computer setup on a desk in the living room. It was an age before laptops had become ubiquitous, and I suspect there will come a time when films looking for period accuracy will have such a beast – plastic sheets of faux wood grain over fiberboard every one – proudly displayed for authenticity.

Now I keep my laptop setup on a table in the basement, behind which we built the sick old girl a bubble of safety to keep nosing dogs away.

On both occasions she slept over my right shoulder, wrapped in a blanket. On both occasions I tried to shoot digital bad guys, but her sleeping form was a constant distraction. In both frozen moments I turned every ten minutes to squint against the glare of the screen and make sure she was tended and comfortable (despite the fact that she had, in truth, not moved a single inch since the last time I’d fussed.)

Now she’s gone, and I should be able to end my watch, but I can’t stop looking over my shoulder.